Alkylaromatics having a benzylic hydrogen, depending on the oxidizing agents used, can be converted to corresponding carboxylic acids, aldehydes, alcohols, or esters. These products have a variety of uses as intermediates for pharmaceuticals, fragrances, and agricultural chemicals, as plasticizers, and as monomers.
A variety of catalysts have been shown to catalytically convert the alkylaromatics to these corresponding products by oxidizing of the benzylic hydrogen. For example, J. Org. Chem. 33:4123-4127 (1968), discloses that benzyl acetates can be synthesized from the corresponding methylbenzenes by reaction of the methylbenzenes with acetic acid and molecular oxygen catalyzed by a catalyst system comprising a palladium salt, an alkali metal carboxylate, and stannous acetate in acetic acid.
However, the process disclosed in the reference has a very low reaction rate requiring very long reaction time to achieve up to 80% conversion of the methylbenzenes.